SENTENCE OF DEATH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 327, 14 June 1911, Page 8

SENTENCE OF DEATH.

TAIII KARATS LAST DAYS. U XCOXCERNE DL Y A WAITING HIS EXECUTION. Auckland, June 12. Within the walls of Mount Eden gaol Tahi Kaka is calmly awaiting the execution of the deatli sentence passed on him twelve days ago for the murder at Kaikohe of an old gumdigger, John Freeman. The Maori boy passes his time in gaol indifferently smoking, reading, and writing. Of more than average intelligence as he is, it seems inconceivable that he cannot realise the seriousness of his position, yet when intimation was conveyed to him of Cabinet's decision he received it wi.h the indifference! which he has throughout shown towards the ministrations of the prison chaplain. Thoujgh his general demeanour is cheerful and he is affably disposed towards the warders, he has expressed no desire to sae friends or relatives. The only .person with whom he has communicated since the death sentence was passed is a brother who is laid up in an hospital, and these two maintain a regular correspondence. So, smoking and reading and writing to his brother, with occasional intervals of exercise, Tahi Kaka awaits the day unconcernedly, missing no meal-time and losing no sleep, apparently careless of the fact that ere many days pass he will add another line to the gruesome execution record of Mount Eden gaol and one grave more to unhonored burial spots within the precincts of the prison. PETITION FOR REPRIEVE.

The announcement that the death sentence on Kaka will be carried out has resulted in a movement to circulate a petition for presentation to his Excellency the Governor piaving him to reconsider his decision. Bishop Crossley, who since his arrival has taken a keen interest in the native race, is giving the scheme his hearty support, and has announced his intention of heading tho list of signatories. The Revs. H. H. Hawkins (of the Maori Mission) and E. C. Budd (chaplain to the public institutions) are busily exerting themselves in the matter, and it is expected that a large number of clergy of all denominations will also give the petition their support

The petition dwells on Kaka's youtn and the nearness of the Coronation as a suitable occasion on which to grant a repr'i've. The counsel for the prisoner (Mr. \\. E. Hackett) is also taking part in the movement. PREVIOUS EXECUTIONS—A GRIM RECORD. The l ! "*t man executed in New Zealand f( > murder was a Maori named Maketu. who was hanged in Auckland in 1842 for the murder of a white woman, several children and a man at the Bay of Islands. The woman was Mb employer, a Mrs. Robertson, and Maketu, after killing a fellow servant, murdered Mrs. Robertson, her two children and a half-caste child, set fire to the house, and paddled off in a canoi\ to join his tribe. He afterwards confessed the crime and was executed in Auckland.

The first offender to suffer the extreme penalty of the law in Mount Eden gaol was a butcher named Richard M. Harper, who murdered his wife in Edwards sirnet, Auckland, and was hanged ion October ,')rd, ].SiS3. Since then there I have been eleven executions at Mount Eden. Aleander McLean, for the murder of his wife at Pokeno, was hanged on October 21st, 1864. James Stock, %r I the killing of his mother-in-law at Otahuhu, suffered death on April 7th, 1860. For various murders, ttve Hauhaus, in- ! eluding Solomon the Prophet, were ' hanged on May 17th, 1866. Seven years later, on July 29th, 1873, Joseph Eppwright, a sailor, suffered the death penalty for the murder of the third mate of the whaling barque Rainbow. Charles Dyer was hanged on October 30th, 1874, for the confessed murder at Pakiri of a young woman named Eliza Batters ea', by pouring kerosene over her and burning her to death. On February 19th, 1875, Nutana suffered the death penalty for having killed a Maori girl at Orakei. Martin Curtain, a settler °f Ararimu, Wairoa South, ended a long existing fued with a neighbor named Shanaghan by killing the latter, and he, on February oth, 1878, expiated the crime. Three months later Te Pahi, a Maori, wont to the scaffold for having tomahawked a fellow prisoner (Morgan) in Ngaruawahia gaol. Hare Winiata (Harry Wynyard), a Maori, -went to the gallows on August 4th, 1882, for having murdered Edwin Packer on a farm at Epsom. John Caffrey and Henry Albert Penn, both seafaring men, were on February 21st, 1887, executed for the murder of Samuel Taylor, of Tryphena Harbor, Great Barrier Island, and on May 21at, 1893, Alexander James Scott was hanged for poisoning at Waikumete a man named Thompson. Thus there have been twelve executions in Mount Eden gaol, and thirteen altogether in Auckland, eighteen men having suffered the extreme penalty—nine Maoris and nine white men.

A STRONG DENIAL. NEITHER CALLOUS NOR UNFEELING. Dr. Crossley, Anglican Bishop of Auckland, writes as follows to the New Zealand Herald in reference to the prisoner:— "I have laid the following pleas before His Excellency the Governor requesting hiin to place them before jus Government as reasons that, the recommendation to mercy appended by the jury which tried him should be given effect ito:

"firstly, the boy is only seventeen years of age; his brother, who is nineteen, confirms this. Secondly, in most minds the verdict was based on the boy's own confession. No other evidence of the act was forthcoming, and this at all events suggests the possibility of a struggle. Thirdly, the boy's environment, never at day or Sunday school, away from home "since he was thirteen, and a member of a tribe which has resisted the entrance of religious work amongst them. Fourthly, slow of intellect and morally dull without an acute sense of property or wrong. As to his being callous and unfeeling I can give the strongest denial, both from the witness of the chaplain of the gaol the Rev. E. C. Budd, and of the superintendent of our .Maori Mission, the Rev. If. A. Hawkins, both of whom have repeatedly seen him in gaol. In addition, I have visited him myself, and have no doubt in niv own mind that he is deeply conscious of his awful sin and is, 1 do believe, truly penitent, i would not have put this on paper had not other statements appeared in puhlic, but the real ground on which we as citizens appeal for a reconsideration of his senj tence rests upon the fact of his youth and also upon the fact that the jury sent not a recommendation but a stron'e recommendation to mercv. Surely, when throughout the British Dominions at the Coronation time elemenev is iieing shown to prisoners, Xew Zealand will not refuse to give a young, though deeply stained life a chance for reformation, and thus give effect to the weighty appeal of a responsible jury."